Tool: Американская рок-группа

American rock band

Tool is an American rock band from Los Angeles. Formed in 1990, the group consists of vocalist Maynard James Keenan, guitarist Adam Jones, drummer Danny Carey and bassist Justin Chancellor, the latter of whom replaced founding member Paul D'Amour in 1995. Tool has won four Grammy Awards, performed worldwide tours, and produced albums topping the charts in several countries. To date, the band has released five studio albums, one EP and one box set. It emerged with a heavy metal sound on their first studio album, Undertow (1993), and became a dominant act in the alternative metal movement with the release of their follow up album Ænima in 1996. The group's efforts to combine musical experimentation, visual arts, and a message of personal evolution continued with Lateralus (2001) and 10,000 Days (2006), gaining critical acclaim and international commercial success. Its fifth studio album Fear Inoculum was released on August 30, 2019, to widespread critical acclaim. Prior to its release, the band had sold more than 13 million albums in the US alone. Due to Tool's incorporation of visual arts and very long and complex releases, the band has been described as a style transcending act and part of progressive rock, psychedelic rock, and art rock. The relationship between the band and the music industry is ambivalent, at times marked by censorship, and the band's insistence on privacy.

During the 1980s, each of the future members of Tool moved to Los Angeles. Both Paul D'Amour and Adam Jones wanted to enter the film industry, while Maynard James Keenan, who had studied visual arts in Michigan, worked as a pet store remodeler. to positive responses, which Janiss Garza of RIP Magazine summarized in September 1992 as a "buzz" and "a strong start". The band accepted on the condition that Melvins had to join it as well because, as stated by its frontman Buzz Osborne, they "wanted at least one band on the tour that they liked", despite the dissuasions from the tour organizers. Two legal battles then began that interfered with the band's working on another release. Volcano Entertainment—the successor of Tool's by then defunct label Zoo Entertainment—alleged contract violations by Tool and filed a lawsuit. According to Volcano, Tool had violated their contract when the band looked at offers from other record labels. After Tool filed a counter suit stating that Volcano had failed to use a renewal option in their contract, the parties settled out of court. In December 1998 Tool agreed to a new contract, a three record joint venture deal. Carey said to the music publication that one untitled track is "pretty much done". He said that he hoped the album would be finished before the end of 2015 but emphasized that the band would not rush their work to meet an arbitrary deadline. While it was reported in February 2017 that Keenan had entered the studio to work on vocals for the fifth Tool album, it was later reported that the album was not scheduled for release in 2017. Still, the band announced a North American tour starting in May. A month later, Chancellor revealed that the new Tool album was "about 90 percent there", while Carey claimed in separate interviews that it would "definitely" be released in 2018. In February 2018, Jones revealed that Keenan was working on lyrics for the album, and that the band would begin recording in March. In June 2018, during his acceptance speech for the Icon Award at the Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards, Keenan stated "I'll go on record now saying you're gonna see some new music next year." On September 11, 2018, Keenan announced via Twitter that production on the record was progressing and that vocals had been written, before suggesting a 2019 release. In January 2019, Keenan announced that he had completed recording his vocals for the album "months ago." While Carey mentioned aiming for a mid April release date, Keenan later explained that between May and July was a more realistic time frame to wrap up production and release the album. On May 5, 2019, the band debuted two new songs live at the Welcome to Rockville Festival in Jacksonville, Florida called "Descending" and "Invincible". Three days later, it was confirmed that the band's new album is scheduled to be released on August 30, 2019. On July 29, 2019, Keenan confirmed the album would be titled Fear Inoculum. The album's title track was released as a single on August 7, the band's first release in 13 years. On August 2, the entirety of Tool's discography (with the exception of Salival) became available on digital streaming platforms. Tool was one of the last major holdouts to release their music digitally, as their record deal was signed before the rise in streaming and not revisited until before Fear Inoculum. The release of the discography online resulted in every release re charting on several international charts and the band breaking several Billboard chart records. Fear Inoculum was officially launched on August 30 and became their third U. S. number one. On January 26, 2020, the band won the Best Metal Performance for their song "7empest" at the 62nd Grammy Awards Their other nomination, the song "Fear Inoculum" lost the Best Rock Song category to Gary Clark Jr. In June 2020, the band announced that it would cancel its upcoming 2020 North American tour entirely, after initially postponing a handful of dates due to the COVID 19 pandemic. The following August, Carey noted that the band had entered a hiatus, but that he still hoped they would reconvene in the future to record an EP, which the band would have more freedom in releasing due to no longer being signed to a record label. On October 27, 2020, an instrumental song titled "The Witness" was released featuring Jones, Chancellor, and Carey, and featuring production from Barresi, though the song was credited to Jones, not the band itself. "Opiate" was re recorded and released as "Opiate²" or "Opiate Squared" on March 1, 2022. It is almost twice as long as the original and includes the same lyrics as the live version, plus the extended instrumental midsection. A music video directed by Dominic Hailstone was released on March 18, 2022, to commemorate the EP's 30th anniversary.

In March 2022, Carey announced they were working on new material for their sixth studio album, noting that " it won't take us this long for the next one. We even had some stuff left over from the last one that we'll develop. We have head starts on three or four new songs." In October 2023, Chancellor reiterated this, and noted he hoped the band would enter the studio to record in 2024 after the band wraps up touring. In January 2024, Carey mentioned the new album has the possibility of having a shorter track lengths, noting that "we could just go back to doing an Undertow [type of] record. That's kind of appealing to me."

Writers HP Newquist and Rich Maloof attribute to Tool an influence on modern metal in their book The New Metal Masters. Sean Richardson of The Boston Phoenix sees System of a Down, Deftones, and Korn as examples of Tool's "towering influence" on the genre. Will Martin of Earshot,